Rainfall Data for Near Miss

SEPA has kindly sent us the rainfall data from the Newton of Falkland rain collection station for our near miss event. It makes for some interesting reading, especially when we compare and contrast with previous flood events.

Table: SEPA rainfall data from Newton of Falkland

Between 5am and 9pm we experienced 44.8mm of rainfall, but thankfully there were no extreme flash flood type rain periods. Had the rainfall been heavier or lasted longer then we would have had major flooding throughout the village.

Last year’s devastating floods were caused by heavy rainfall on the preceding Saturday and then very heavy rainfall in the early hours of the Wednesday morning. Flooding started around 5:20am after two hours of extremely heavy rainfall.

Table: SEPA rainfall data from Newton of Falkland

Based on our experience and supported by the SEPA data, it appears we need to worry when we are experiencing more than 5mm of rainfall per hour on ground that is already saturated.

We desperately need to put in place Natural Flood Management (NFM) and other control measures to hold back these surge events, re-route some of the water draining into Freuchie and improve the capacity of the watercourses. Some of this is fairly easy and quick to achieve when the funding is put in place and we have the co-operation of landowners to allow flood prevention measures to be built and deployed on their land.

Rainfall data supplied courtesy of SEPA and is subject to final quality control checks. Thank you SEPA.

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